FIRST time o.c.ing

Yep guys this is the first time iam attempting to overclock my mobilty radeon hd 3450 with the program GPU tool. I used the option FIND MAX for the gpu clock and when it got to 680 my screen flash and it came back a second later saying the display driver stoped responding. So should i keep it at 650 to make it safe and would i notice that much of a performance gain going from 510-650.

 

find max is NOT good to keep at, or even just lower. you need to be on the safe side otherwise your GPU will burn out =[ you really just want a 15-20% increase from the stock speed of your card

 

Really, the thing is would i notice any performance increases?

 

Most people dont recommend using the "find max" option ever on these programs. And I never found them to be very good personally either. Honestly I suggest you just get ATI Tool (or something similar) to stress your gpu and check for artifacts while you slowly raise the clocks. Start the stressing without overclocking 1st to let your gpu heat up(should shoot up rather quickly once you start to "scan for artifacts". Once the temps start to level off, start raising your clocks by 10-20mhz at a time. Then wait 10-15mins. If clean then repeat. Do this over and over SLOWLY (dont rush it, its a delicate process) until either 1 of 2 things occurs: you get artifacts, either visually or reported by the program. Or your gpu temps hit ~90C. Some people suggest lower and others think higher is ok. I think 90 is a good median. But lower is always safer. If the former, take it down a step. Once you reach this point, let the system continue to work for a couple hours to make sure it's fine. Then save the clocks and enjoy!

PS. For a better test, I suggest you combine the gpu stress test with a cpu stress test like orthos(think i spelled it wrong but im sure someone will correct me) and run them in parrallel. This way the heat in your laptop should max out since you will be generating heat from both your cpu and your gpu. It's prolly better to watch your temps with HWMonitor instead of just the built-in ATI Tool temp too as HWMonitor shows all temp sensors and not just the gpu.

PPS. For a more detailed guide, see THIS

 

The thing is ati tool doesnt support my gpu. But i can still get it to scan for artifacts and i would use GPU Tool to change clocks, GPU tool already does scan for artifacts. I think iam gonna leave it at 600 though.

 

Try AMD GPU Clock tool to overclock, use ATI Tool to scan for artifacts and HWMonitor for watching temps

EDIT: oops, didnt read your whole post hahaha.

 

AMD tool is way better, the other one crashes my laptop with lower overclocks.

 

Tried every program and this one works, I just would like to know if I would notice any performance gains. And 20 percent is usually safe.

 

Gains will only be noticed if your settings are pushing the gpu to it's limit. Otherwise you wont notice anything. Performance gains will depend the game, but you wont get much of a boast. Maybe a few fps here and there. If you're on the borderline then it's helpful. If you lag like crazy with normal clocks, overclocking wont do much(with a few notable exceptions, but ur gpu isnt one of them)

 

Does overclocking limit the life span of the gpu?

 

I also been noticing lower temps at load with my overclocked settings 600core/570mem oppose to 500/500. Why is my temps lower when its overclocked, is it good or bad ?

 

thats odd. the computer gnomes are trying to mess with you. i think whatever your using to check temps is reading wrong (i could be wrong though).

 

I would like to try this, i have the same graphics as xxbadboys93, i'm just a bit worried if i break my laptop, setting the core to 600 and memory to 570 -600, is that safe?

What is the max?

What do i have to look out for if anything goes wrong?

 

Kendoisonfire,
My core max was 680 but iam leaving it on 600 for safety reasons, and thats a 20 percent gain, My mem max is 585 but Iam leaving it on 570 for safety reasons. I notice a 5fps gain in some games which helps out. YOu just got to do trail and error, set your mhz by 5 or 10 at a time and scan for artifacts.

 

Thanks, i changed mine to the settings you said - 600/570, and then i ran 3dmark06, and it always fails on one of the graphics test and i get a windows error, something along the lines of graphics adapter failing.

Any ideas?

 

Kendoison do you have a steam so we can chat, oh its becuase your core clock is too high. For example my memory went bad at 585 mhz as mastershrooms can reach 600mhz. So every gpu is different. You might want to hit find max for gpu core then see what it gets up to, when theres an error it would say gpu has stop responding and recovered. When it says that hard boot the computer and put it 15 mhz down from where it went bad and stress test it.

 

I don't have steam no, never got round to installing it again after my os got wiped when i tried a complete backup.

I'll try the find max, see where i get

 

@xxbadboys93
i think it will lower ur life span if u r not using a good cooling system,
heat lowers life span of any electronics device , over clocking produce a lot more heat then when operating in normal ranges

 

I just did a find max test and my core got to 605 before it got any errors, then it put itself back down to 600 and the max memory managed to get up to 685 before any errors, so it put itself down to 680. The gpu temp went upto a max of 79c using hwmonitor.

 

Ken
I would say to lower your core clock to around 590 ad put your memory on 670. IF you get a chance can you run a 3dmark06 and see what you get. I went up 300 points. And i would say 85 degrees C is pretty good. As long as you dont go past 85. Mine reaches 82.
And did you notice any fps differences.

 

I would assume that, yes, your graphics card generates more heat while overclocked. However, since the computer detects more heat and kicks up te fan, lowering the temperature.

Here's an example (with my making numbers up)

The computer wants the GPU to run no higher than 90C

Under regular conditions the GPU raises to 88C, which is under the limit.

While overclocking, the GPU gets to 92C, but the laptop forces the fan into action, thus cooling your card to 82C.

 

Ok now it seems to run hotter because i compared the temps after running a couple of test of 3dmark06. It must of been a fluke.
Can someone explain what overclocking the core clock does and overclocking the memory does?

 

I just set it to 590/670 and i got an error in 3dmark06 and it stopped (IDirect3dVertexBuffer9::Lock failed: n/a (unknown)

 

So just lower the clocks a little bit and test agian. Trial and ERROR

 

I just ran a few tests with 3dmark 06, i get 1916 when my gpu is at the default settings.

Here are some of the results -


580/660 - 2178 3DMarks


590/660 - 2208 3DMarks


590/665 - 2210 3DMarks


590/670 - 2213 3DMarks


590/680 - 2224 3DMarks


590/690 - 2226 3DMarks


590/700 - 2230 3DMarks


I'm wondering, should i try and push the memory further than 700? i didn't get any errors with 590/700, i remember saying earlier that i started getting errors when i tried max memory when it got to 685, i'm a bit confused.

 

memory overclocking gives you more bandwidth for big textures and core increases overall processing power.